House of Winter

Chapter 22, Part 2

"You don't need ships," Ari said suddenly. "Warrah can fish for you. He won't be seen by the fire soldiers, and he'll be able to get enough fish for everyone. But we'll have to wait until after dark."

The woman looked relieved, and she quickly relayed the words to her husband and a few other people who were looking at the dragon curiously.

"And what of the starrling children?" her husband asked gruffly. He was a broad man, with short cropped hair and skin so black it looked almost blue in the light of the suns. He was staring at Ari with suspicion.

The woman glanced at Ari. "Please, my husband wants to know, do you know anything about other starrling children?"

Ari swallowed and shook her head. "What other children?"

"We had three children on our island who were water starrlings," the woman explained. "When the Lombardians invaded, we sent them off to scout for help on the back of a dragon - the only dragon we had on our island. But we haven't seen or heard from them since. They're only young, and we're worried about them. Our island can't take another loss of starrlings. Starrlings are rare on our island anyway. And last year..." the woman inhaled. "We already lost a starrling boy last year."

"A starrling boy went missing?" Ari asked.

"His name was Kari and he was only twelve," the woman said, and she clutched at her chest. "His parents were ords, so they were so proud to have a starrling child. It was unexpected. The whole island gave the family as much coin as we could part with to help him get a water dragon, and the two of them grew up together. We loved to see them playing in the water. He was such a talented boy. And then he vanished. His parents left on a ship to try to find him; they thought he might have escaped to Lombardia on the back of his dragon, in search of adventure. But they came home empty handed."

Ari was sitting up and staring at the ocean, and suddenly remembering the beginning of the school year, when she'd heard that a few wards had not shown up for class. Ari had been confused as to why they wouldn't come back to the school. It was the best place for an education and opportunities for wards, despite the hard work they had to do. But her sister had dismissed her worries, insisting that the wards must have gone off in search of better work and conditions.

So many wards hadn't turned up at the school, and yet no one had really thought twice about it. The orphans of the fire wars weren't special. Everyone was more concerned with the royalty at the school, like Raphael and Katja, to concern themselves with the wards who swept the floors at night.

Why hadn't she questioned it before? Why would so many wards not show up at the school? And why had water starrling children disappeared?

Suddenly it all seemed too convenient to Ari. Children were missing, and time and time again they had been dismissed. They were poor children, orphans and wards or water starrlings from poor islands. No one missed them. No one seemed to notice that they were gone. Everyone assumed they had run away. But what if they hadn't run away?

Something else was going on here, and Ari suddenly knew she had to find out.

When she was feeling well enough to stand up, Ari tried to help out in the camp with the chores - like building a new tent so they had more shelter to sleep in. At this time of year in Kakaio it was not cold like in Lombardia, but sometimes the wind was strong along the coast. At least it wasn't the rain season.

As soon as it was night, Ari knew she needed to escape the camp with Warrah so that she could fish for everyone. There were still fire soldiers patrolling the barrier of the camp and they had set up stakes with fire for light around the perimeter of the camp.

Ari needed some kind of diversion so she could get out of the camp and go fishing. So when she heard the bell in the town she thought it might be the diversion she required. On the horizon she could see more boats coming into land.

Suddenly the port was full of fire soldiers running to the attention of the boats. The night was dark, but the stakes of fire on the beaches lit up the flags on the ships, and Ari could see the emblem of a claw, in red and black. When she saw the flag, she couldn't help but take in a breath.

Ari had studied history at the college and she knew exactly what a black claw on a red flag meant. It wasn't the flag of the Kaio Empire. The Empress of Kakaio flew gold banners on her ships.

But her son, Taisun Tsukasai, had flown red and black when he had murdered his own father to take over the empire and declare war against Lombardia.

"The emperor is dead," Ari whispered to herself, but she knew who would fly the emperor's colours. His son, Taikku Tsukasai, would find it fitting to fly his father's banner. It was a declaration of his own power against his grandmother, and his own intent to lead Kakaio. It was a declaration of war.

Tai was here.

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elle xx